...[Taylor] Branch is best known for his trilogy of books on Martin Luther King’s
life and the civil rights movement, which are meticulously researched
and extremely long. (The paperback version of the first book, “Parting
the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-1963,“is 1,088 pages.) In a recent interview, Branch said that he had never anticipated writing a bookfor schools, but in his travels, teachers would repeatedly ask him for help in understanding and teaching the subject.

“I believe storytelling and things that are personal are the best
point of entry for anybody, but it does make for a long and sprawling
text,” he said. “And people ask me, ‘Do I regret doing all of that? And
should I have written this short little book from the beginning?’ ”

Of course not, he said. Indeed, without the intimate knowledge he
learned of the period during his many years of research, he couldn’t
have adequately assembled a 190-page (in paperback) book that highlights
the key moments of the King years, drawn from his trilogy. (The other
two books in the trilogy are “Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years,
1963-65″ and “At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68.”)...